Also, try enabling texture compression and texture compression caching (both opengl options), then rebuilt the chart database. This should significantly speedup raster charts and reduce memory usage, and make it work well even from an sd card.

Enabled both options and saw another improvement in performance. Using glshim and texture compression, using opencpn on the cubieboard2 is very pleasant, with panning and zooming smooth. Also looks great on the 42' HDTV that I am using to test the cb2.

Though re-building the chart database with compression caching enabled seemed to take a very long time (about an hour for the NOAA raster charts that I downloaded to test opencpn and the cb2). Not sure if this process is normally lengthy or if this is just a reflection of the relatively-limited power of the cb2?

Enabled both options and saw another improvement in performance. Using glshim and texture compression, using opencpn on the cubieboard2 is very pleasant, with panning and zooming smooth. Also looks great on the 42' HDTV that I am using to test the cb2.

Though re-building the chart database with compression caching enabled seemed to take a very long time (about an hour for the NOAA raster charts that I downloaded to test opencpn and the cb2). Not sure if this process is normally lengthy or if this is just a reflection of the relatively-limited power of the cb2?

I rebuild the raster charts for all of USA in 2 hours on my chromebook. Some users reported over 8 hours (on really old computers) This is for 4.5GB of charts, the resulting cache is about 6GB.

The cubie truck using opengles uses a completely different compression format, so it probably takes a bit more cpu, and it's a slower machine. The cubie truck has dual processor, and if you look at top or statistics, it should be maxing out both processors. It does take a while and uses a bit of disk space, but you can just run it overnight.

I received a few requests about how I went about running openCPN with HW accelaration on the cubieboard2. The thread contains most of the information, but it might be useful to have it all in a single place specific to the CB2. Below are notes that I took of the process. I mostly recorded this as I went along, but some of it was written down after-the-fact: if something is unclear, let me know and I can try to fill in the details.

I own a cubieboard2: I am not sure if the cubietruck is exactly the same, but hopefully enough is common that this still works for you.

-- Start with a fresh install of the desktop version of cubian on an SD card, from here:

Code:

http://cubian.org/downloads/

-- The stock cubian image has a small amount of free space on the root filesystem. You need to follow the instructions here to expand (I just told it to use the entire amount of my 16GB card):

Code:

http://cubian.org/2013/08/12/enlarge-cubian-rootfs-partition/

-- Install some additional packages:

Code:

$ sudo apt-get install glxgears build-essential git cmake libx11-dev

--

-- Download the forked version of the glshim:

Code:

$ git clone https://github.com/seandepagnier/glshim.git

-- Cubian had a different naming scheme for some of the library locations. The forked version of the gl.h header file could not find that location, but the mainline one did, so you just need to download that one:

-- Cubian had a different naming scheme for some of the library locations. The forked version of the gl.h header file could not find that location, but the mainline one did, so you just need to download that one:

No doubt this step would confuse a lot of people, myself included. I'm using cubian, and somehow it all worked for me two months ago. Looks like just last week ryan made this small change.. I just cherry-picked it into my fork to eliminate this step.

Thanks Owlhead and Sean for the postings. For some reason I can't get Cubian to run on my CT, it gets stuck in a boot loop and the screen is garbled (HDMI). I tried it on Qbee-X and the opengl is running after lauching from the terminal and I can move the map around smoothly and quickly but I've got a problem with the install. I think its due to the file structure. Version is 3.3.1731. When I zoom right in some of the colours go grey. Heres the read out from the terminal window. The (opencpn:1288) bit keeps repeating.

I got Cubian on the CT working by pulling out the HDMI lead until it booted and then plugged it back in. Followed the instructions and it runs worse than the Qbee-Z install. I'm getting the same errors on both installs.

I bought several of these boards, hoping to get them to work with gnuradio. I guess my linux skills are lacking. The learning curve is huge. I have downloaded many distro and it seems that the A20 cpu and graphic are not that popular. It does seem to run cubieboard A20 images. I keep running into issue when I try to build from source which each distro. I will try it, what SD distro should I start off with?